A trio of San Ramon teens is being hailed as heroes after rescuing a 94-year-old woman from a burning home.

The senior students at California High School were skipping class at about 10 a.m. Monday to get something to eat when they saw smoke. The teens ended up on Broadmoor Drive, where smoke was billowing from the back of a house.

When Garen Kissoyan and his friends, Peter Kravariotis and Kirill Yantikov, drove up, they saw Dianna Davis in the garage calling for help.

"I was turning on the hose, she was on the phone with 911," Kissoyan said. "We asked the lady if anyone was in the house at the time -- she didn't respond."

Davis eventually told the teens her elderly mother was inside.

"We both had the same instinct," Kravariotis said. "Just go in the house, so we did."

• Woman Rescued After San Jose Cliff Fall

The teens ran into the fire and smoke, and discovered an elderly woman sitting in a chair. The woman was suffering from burns and covered in soot.

"When we picked up the chair and we grabbed the dog," Kravariotis said, "the only thing she said to us was 'I'm on fire,' and it was kind of shocking to me to hear that."

Bob Smith, who lives across the street, had already been inside. He said his age and heavy smoke pushed him right back out.

"The elderly lady, she would have been gone a minute and a half more," Smith said. "I don't think she could have survived. I went in there and couldn't see my hand in front of my face. It was that bad."

Firefighters eventually arrived on scene and extinguished the two-alarm blaze. Investigators are working to determine the cause of the fire.

The elderly woman was taken to a burn center in San Francisco, where she remains in critical condition.

Bay City News Service contributed to this report.

As an advocacy group filed a lawsuit against a proposed policy that includes the deleting of all city emails that are more than a year old, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer officially rescinded the policy, citing a new era of open, transparent government for the City of San Diego.

The non-profit group, San Diegans for Open Government (SDOG), filed the lawsuit under the California Public Records Act.

On Feb. 27, 2014, interim Mayor Todd Gloria announced the adoption of a policy, known as “AR 90.67,” that would authorize the destruction of city emails that are more than one year old. According to the lawsuit filed by SDOG, the policy – which SDOG says is illegal – had been adopted internally by the city two weeks before this information was made public.

“Had someone not leaked the interim mayor’s announcement to the press, the public would not have found out about AR 90.67 until long after the email communications had been destroyed,” the lawsuit filed by attorney Cory Briggs, states.

• Read the full lawsuit here

When San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer took office earlier this month, the city announced Faulconer was placing the proposed policy on hold pending further review. Per the policy, the process of deleting vast amounts of city emails would have started on Mar. 28, lasting through Apr. 30.

On Tuesday, Faulconer announced he was officially rescinding the proposed email purge at city hall in an effort to keep transparency in city government.

"My mission is to increase openness and transparency at City Hall, and this is just one of the first steps," Faulconer said. "I reviewed the policy and believe the public's right to have access to City documents is worth the additional financial cost that will come with retaining these emails. In today's modern age, I believe San Diego can be a leader in using technology to increase transparency."

According to Faulconer, the City of San Diego switched to a new email system in January 2013 that allows the retention of City emails for an unlimited amount of time. However, the hurdle faced by the City has been how to store and maintain the information contained in two older email systems, including one with a significant amount of corrupted data.

Faulconer said his administration is now working with the City’s IT staff and leaders in the local tech community to find the most cost-effective way to store this older data in perpetuity.

“New cost estimates to store the old emails are being reviewed by City staff, with a majority of the expenses expected to be one-time,” stated a release from Faulconer’s office.

NBC 7 has learned a relative and employee of the Singapore businessman in the center of a large Navy bribery scandal pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday.

Alex Wisidagama was a company manager who worked for his cousin, Leonard Francis. Wisidagama has now pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government.

• Read Wisidagama's full plea here

Francis, known to Navy officials as "Fat Leonard," is the CEO of Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd., or GDMA.

Prosecutors allege the company overbilled the Navy by at least $20 million by bribing Navy officers.

The officers would receive luxury vacations and prostitution services in exchange for confidential ship route information, prosecutors claim.

In some instances, Francis would allegedly direct the movement of Navy vessels to Asian ports with lax oversight so his company could inflate costs and invent tariffs by using phony port authorities, according to federal prosecutors. 

Wisidagama was arrested along with Navy Cmdr. Jose Luis Sanchez and Cmdr. Michael Vannak Khem Misiewicz.

Senior U.S. Navy criminal investigator John Beliveau II pleaded guilty to bribery charges in December.

Beliveau tipped off an Asian defense contractor at the center of a multimillion-dollar fraud investigation and downloaded more than 100 confidential files in exchange for luxury trips and prostitution services, prosecutors said.

GDMA has provided fuel, food and supplies for Navy ships for 25 years. The investigation started in 2009.

Four Southern California children allegedly taken by force from their grandmother’s home by their non-custodial parents were located near the U.S.-Mexico border Tuesday morning, bringing an end to the Amber Alert issued by authorities for the children.

Officials deactivated the Amber Alert and said the children were found safe at around 10:15 a.m. They were turned over to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer at the San Ysidro Port of Entry near San Diego.

The children's parents, however, remained at large and may have possibly crossed the border into Mexico, according to officials.

No further details were immediately released by authorities. The Los Angeles Police Department planned to hold a press conference regarding this case around 4 p.m. Tuesday.

LAPD officers planned to pick up the children from the San Ysidro Port of Entry and bring them back to Los Angeles.

The kids – identified as Enrique Felix, 7; Justin Felix, 5; and 1-year-old twins Veronica and Janeth Felix – were allegedly taken by their parents from their grandmother’s home in Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights area at 12 :30 p.m. Friday.

The parents are identified as Enrique Felix and Rose Chaidez.

Police believe the parents may be traveling in a green Ford Expedition SUV with the California license plate 4LPF643.

Felix is described as a 28-year-old Hispanic man. He’s 5-foot-10 with brown eyes and black hair. Chaidez is described as a Hispanic woman, 5-foot-2 with red hair and brown eyes. According to investigators, both parents have a history of violence.

The children were living with their grandmother after being taken into protective custody by the Department of Children and Family Services, which then placed them in the care of their grandmother, police said.
 

Mayor Kevin Faulconer has declared March “SeaWorld San Diego 50th Anniversary Month,” honoring the organization’s five decades in the community.

The mayor made the proclamation during Tuesday’s City Council meeting. He was joined by Councilmember Lori Zapf and SeaWorld's oldest employee.

But outside City Hall, a small group of animal rights activists protested the decision.

“Dedicating the month of March to SeaWorld’s 50th anniversary is shameful, and Mayor Faulconer should be condemning SeaWorld for its cruel treatment of orcas and other animals instead of celebrating its greed,” said Matt Bruce with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The documentary “Blackfish,” which takes a critical look at SeaWorld’s treatment of Orca whales, has prompted widespread blacklash.

• Read: SeaWorld’s Response to “Blackfish” Buzz

But Mayor Faulconer defends his decision. He says SeaWorld has provided the area with thousands of jobs and has done good work with animal research and conservation.

“SeaWorld’s been a leader and as mayor, I’m proud to recognize what they’ve meant to this city for 50 years and what they’re going to be for decades to come,” Faulconer said.

California Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D) has proposed a bill that would stop killer whale shows at SeaWorld.

SeaWorld has called the legislation a publicity stunt.

It's a sight that's become quite an eyesore in downtown San Diego.

With smells that are wrinkling people's noses.

The unwelcome offender?

A long row of Porta-Potties across the street from City Hall.

They've been on the sidewalk north of the C Street Trolley line, on the east side of Third Avenue, since late February.

They serve mainly the homeless, since the public restrooms next to the Civic Theater’s loading zone were closed to make way for an accessibility project under the Americans With Disabilities Act.

"It’s just been a mess and it's a disgrace to the heart of the city, quite frankly,” says Paul Dobson, owner of a popular downtown restaurant bearing his name.

“A lot of times it smells so bad I have to go around the other way," Dobson added, in a streetside interview Tuesday. "The homeless hang here, too. I feel sorry, but it's a blemish to the city."

The infrastructure work has disrupted both foot and vehicle traffic in the heart of San Diego's downtown, high-rise financial district.

It’s taking place just steps away from a trolley line in the shadow of luxury hotels whose guests may be tempted – to the dismay of tourism boosters -- to send Twitter-pics of the Porta-Potties to followers world-wide.

While the work that's put them on the high-visibility sidewalk can't be avoided, civic and business leaders say City Hall is way overdue for demolition -- and that the restroom overhaul project once again raises larger questions as to when, and how, a new city hall gets built.

"This building has got to come down,” says Tom Wornham, a past chairman of San Diego’s regional Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Corp.

“If you were a business and you were anybody but the city, you couldn't occupy this,” Wornham observed, on his way into City Hall late Tuesday morning for a meeting with Mayor Faulconer.

”It is rotten with asbestos. It has problems with fire sprinklers and even the structural integrity … but if that's what it takes to get everyone focused on that building needing to be replaced -- it's time folks!”

Why haven’t city leaders been able to overcome inertia, the financial and logistical problems involved?

“It’s that lack of political will,” Wornham replied. “It’s more political ‘won’t’.”

The estimated pricetag for the last new City Hall proposal was upwards of half a billion dollars.

Meantime, public works officials say the project to bring the public restrooms into full ADA compliance will come in at under $200,000.

But – hold your noses for a while longer, pedestrians – it’s expected take another month to finish.

Three war memorial plaques commemorating U.S. military service members were recently stolen from a park in San Diego County and police are now looking for the culprits behind the crime.

For more than 60 years, the war memorial plaques have decorated Kimball Park Stadium in San Diego’s National City area. The brass plaques were dedicated to servicemen hailing from National City who died serving the United States during World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars.

According to the National City Police Department (NCPD), two of the plaques were reported stolen on Monday. The third plaque was snatched from the park that same night.

Police said two of the plaques measure 3 feet by 4 feet, and the third measures 4 feet by 5 feet.

One of the stolen plaques states: “In memoriam of the men of National City who made the supreme sacrifice for their country in World War II, 1941-1945.”

Another plaque, which lists names of late, local U.S. servicemen, says: “In honor and memory of the citizens of National City who gave their lives in the service of their country during the Korean War and the Vietnam Conflict.”

As of Tuesday evening, the suspect or suspects responsible for stealing the war memorial plaques remained at large.

Last month, NBC 7 San Diego reported a similar theft happening at Greenwood Memorial Park in San Diego, which is home to a large number of gravesites of U.S. veterans.

There, as the general manager said, someone is stealing bronze vases meant to hold flowers that sit atop some veterans’ gravesites. The thefts have escalated at the cemetery and park site over the last few years, despite round-the-clock security, and staffers believe the vases are being stolen and melted down for money.

Faced with harsh complaints from customers, bad reviews from the Better Business Bureau and tough questions from NBC 7 Investigates, a local company last month promised to improve how it does business.

But one dissatisfied customer now says Farm Fresh Foods took much too long to make good on its promise, and she worries that other customers will not be treated fairly and honestly.

Dotti Garton of North Park paid $179 for a freezer pack of beef.

She’s an experienced cook, and she says the meat sold by Farm Fresh’s door-to-door sales people was the worst she had ever tasted.

That includes the hamburger (which the salesman described as "all natural chopped steak"), and even the “bacon-wrapped filets.”

"I cooked one, then tried to eat it,” Dottie says of the filet. “I couldn't chew it even. I actually spit it out and looked at it. I thought, 'Are you kidding?’"

Dottie wasn’t alone in her culinary critique of the Farm Fresh product.

Our NBC 7 Investigates team found more than 50 similar complaints about quality and business practices posted on the Yelp and Better Business Bureau (BBB) websites.

The El Cajon company lost its BBB accreditation in 2011, and has a "D" rating, on the BBB’s “A-to-F” scale.

When NBC 7 Investigates asked owner Ben Chouinard for a response last month, he said, “The BBB report and the NBC 7 inquires has sort of cast a wake-up call for me, to take an honest and unfiltered look at how we do business."

Chouinard promised big changes would be made at his company, including a new “ethics code” for employees, which prohibits "high-pressure tactics" and "fast-talking sales jargon."

But Chouinard was not willing to abandon a policy that is the object of several complaints on Yelp and the BBB website.

Dissatisfied customers cannot get a cash refund for their unused product; they can only exchange it for another cut of beef, fish, chicken or pork.

But during his interview with NBC 7 Investigates, Chouinard said he would make an exception for Dotti Garton because she had exchanged the product several times and was equally unhappy with what the company gave her.

So on Mar. 6, Dottie called Farm Fresh and asked for her money back.

She talked with several employees, and finally got a promise.

Dotti says the owner’s son, Blake Chouinard, told her he would get the check to her in “24 hours,” but a week passed, and the check didn’t arrive.

Dottie had called every day to ask about the promised refund, and finally, last Thursday, after a week had passed, NBC 7 Investigates contacted Farm Fresh.

The next day, Mar. 14, Farm Fresh owner Ben Chouinard delivered the refund to Dotti's North Park home, handing her two $100 bills, and apologizing for the delay. He told her to keep the $21 change.

“And he looked truly sorrowful about the whole thing and said he hoped it was ‘water under the bridge,’” Dotti told NBC 7 about their conversation.

Just minutes after NBC 7 Investigates talked with Dotti, an envelope arrived in the mail from Farm Fresh Foods. Inside was a check for $179. That check was dated Mar. 11, but the post mark on the envelope was Mar. 13, the same day NBC 7 Investigates called the company.

Dottie was disappointed that the check wasn’t mailed when promised, and credits NBC 7 Investigates for making the phone call that resulted in her refund.

“It was a bigger result, thanks to you guys,” Dotti said.

But the company’s owner has a different explanation: he says his son made the initial promise that the check would be sent within 24 hours without knowing that the company’s bookkeeper would not be in the office for the rest of the week.

Ben Chouinard says the bookkeeper returned to work on Monday, Mar. 10, wrote the check that day and put it in the mail in El Cajon on Mar. 11. That means it took three days for the check to arrive in North Park, instead of customary one-day delivery.

Dotti, meanwhile, accepts the owner's apology, but is skeptical that the company has made a real commitment to improve its product and its customer service.

“I hope things are truly changed for the other customers," Dotti said. “And I wish him the very best in his efforts to improve things.”

Federal agents announced the results of one of the largest online child exploitation investigations in history Tuesday, involving victims in 37 states and five foreign countries.

Operation Round Table, run by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations team, resulted in the arrest of 14 suspected producers and distributors of child pornography.

Federal investigators have identified and made contact with more than 250 victims of the Internet child pornography ring - including five victims from the Dallas-Fort Worth area and 19 total from Texas.

"Many of the victims were not aware that they were even exploited and that their images were being recorded and subsequently shared by predators globally," said David Marwell, special agent in charge of ICE Homeland Security Investigations Dallas office.

Nearly all of the identified victims - 243 of the 251 total - were male, and more than half of the 159 victims were between 13 and 15 years old, according to investigators.

Many of the victims willingly posed for and shared suggestive photographs of themselves with people who they believed to be peers they had met online, Marwell said.

In reality, the assumed peers were predators who shared the nude and semi-nude photographs on the Darknet's Onion Router, also known as Tor, according to investigators.

"Kids don't think they're in any danger," said Lynn Davis, president and CEO of the Dallas Children's Advocacy Center.

Young people are savvy Internet users across many formats and their guardians need to be aware of who they interact with, Davis said.

Young people may be more willing to put themselves in precarious positions because they do not fully grasp the possible impact of their actions, Davis told NBC 5.

"So some of these kids will still not consider themselves victims until one day they wake up and realize, 'I sent some pictures out there.' And once those pictures are on the Internet you can never get them back," Davis said.

Help ID Possible DFW-Based Suspect

In addition to the 14 people who were arrested and charged in connection to Operation Round Table, federal authorities have requested help in identifying a suspect who produced and posted pornographic photographs involving a baby in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

John Doe [pictured below] is believed to be between 18-20 years of age. In April 2013, he posted photographs of himself sexually abusing a child between 12-18 months old, Marwell told NBC 5.

Based on clues in the pictures, investigators believe this person may now live in, or visited North Texas at the time the photos were taken and posted, according to a release from ICE.

In the photographs, the suspect is wearing a cap with the logo, "Shut Up N Play." At the time, the cap had not been made available for sale, except for very limited distribution within North Texas, according to ICE.

If you recognize the person in this photo, please contact 1-866-347-2423. 

More than a dozen teens have been charged in connection with breaking into a Southern California mansion and throwing a party, which caused more than $1 million in damages, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said.
 
Twelve males and two females, ranging in age from 15 to 18, were charged in separate cases.

All are facing one count of misdemeanor trespassing, while nine are charged with one count of felony burglary. Other charges filed against some of the teens include grand theft, receiving stolen property and petty theft.
 
Investigators said more than 100 people partied at a vacant 90,000-square-foot mansion in La Habra Heights between Nov. 23 and Nov. 24, 2013.

• Bling Ring Redux: Thieving Teens Trash Mansion
  

A stuffed white leopard worth $250,000, a WWII Nazi helmet and thousands of dollars in Armani suits were among items seized from the opulent mansion, which featured fountains, a grand staircase and indoor palms trees.

All 14 have been cited and are scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday.

The ringleaders likely found the home on an online home sale website, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Capt. Tim Murakami told NBC4 at the time. They then advertised the party on social media, drawing an estimated 100 guests, Murakami said.

• Download the FREE NBCLA News app

A group of Southern California teenagers and young adults became known as the Bling Ring when they robbed mansions belonging to celebrities, including Paris Hilton and Linday Lohan, in 2008 and 2009. The cases inspired the 2013 film, "The Bling Ring."

It was a closer race than expected for venture capitalist Bruce Rauner.

Rauner commanded 40 percent of the vote Tuesday night, according to projections by the Associated Press, to win the GOP gubernatorial nomination over challengers Bill Brady, Kirk Dillard and Dan Rutherford and face Gov. Pat Quinn in November.

“We started off over a year ago, nobody knew who we were, nobody gave us a chance,” Rauner said Tuesday night. “But you know what, we worked our tails off because we love this state and we want to go to work for you.”

Dillard followed closely behind all night, ending with 37 percent of the vote. Rutherford conceded 15 minutes after polls closed at 7 p.m.

"It was another very, very, very close election," Dillard said.

Brady conceded around 9:30 p.m. The projected winner wasn't called until after 10 p.m., later than Rauner's supporters expected.

"We were all expecting a Rauner victory pretty early tonight," Sen. Mark Kirk said.

Rauner, a first-time candidate and moderate Republican, led much of the primary race in campaign finance and poll numbers. Along the way his opponents took jabs at his big-time money and connections, accusing him of buying the race and even comparing him to Rod Blagojevich.

• Full election results

They questioned the role Rauner played in his company’s ownership of nursing homes as well as his alleged ties to Stuart Levine, both of which Rauner denied. Rutherford accused him of propagating a sexual harassment claim against the state treasurer, which Rauner also denied.

While others slammed him, though, Rauner kept criticizing Quinn.

"The reason I'm running is we have a failed culture in Springfield, and it's bipartisan failure," Rauner said in a forum co-sponsored by NBC 5 Chicago and the University of Chicago, noting "I believe that Gov. Quinn will never transform our state."

Rauner has called Quinn the worst governor in America and said it will take "a lot of money to beat him." For his part, Rauner has been criticized for a clumsy "regular-guy" approach to the election, as well as his stance on issues like minimum wage, an issue that Quinn has championed.

• Pat Quinn Faces Tough Re-Election Fight

Past polls have indicated Quinn's dwindling popularity as unpaid Illinois bills mount and pension reform chugs along.

"As long as I'm Governor, I'm here to fight for the 99.99 percent," Quinn said in a statement Tuesday. "Since I took the oath of office, we have rebuilt Illinois one hard step at a time, but there is more work to do. Together we will build and protect the middle class and keep Illinois moving forward."

As one of the country’s most solidly blue states, Illinois wasn't supposed to be a battleground, but it's generally agreed upon that a tough race is ahead.

“Can [Quinn] win re-election? Yeah. He’s not a dead man walking,” said Jennifer Duffy, senior editor at The Cook Political Report. “But he’s going to have to run a really strong race.”

His attempts to rein in the country’s worst pension deficit have sparked a revolt by public-employees unions, and an income-tax hike did little to help. Quinn started the year with about $4.5 million in his campaign account, but Rauner can easily match him.

Former Governor Jim Thompson, who supported Sen. Dillard's bid in the primary, said the November race remains a toss-up.

"You're going to see the fight of the century," he said.

More than 150 firefighters worked for hours overnight battling a blaze that gutted a recycling plant in Brooklyn and sent plumes of heavy smoke into the sky that could be seen from New Jersey, officials said.

The fire at the recycling plant on Humboldt Street in Greenpoint started around 7 p.m. Tuesday, according to the FDNY. It quickly escalated to a four-alarm blaze and sent a smoke plume hundreds of feet into the sky. Drone video obtained by NBC 4 New York showed large portions of the building engulfed in flames.

• WATCH: Drone Flies Over the Fire

Crews worked throughout the night combating the fire, which at time spanned hundreds of feet. The blaze was under control by 6 a.m. Wednesday, firefighters said.  

“It was a veryn very fast-moving fire with extremely flammable contents,” Deputy Fire Chief Robert Strong said. "Fortunately this is an industrial area.”

Firefighters were unable to get inside the building to fight the fire because the structure became unstable, a fire official said. At one point, witnesses at the scene saw part of one of the warehouse's exterior walls crumble to the ground.

"When these fires are like this, where the buildings become unstable, we can't get in close enough to quickly put it out," said FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief Jack Mooney.

Recycled cardboard and other materials complicated firefighting efforts, Deputy Chief Brendan McSweeney said.

"We had large bales of cardboard strapped with steel straps and we had rags throughout, so getting to the very seat of all this smoldering cardboard and rags was very difficult," he said. "It's a very time-consuming process."

Firefighters said they received no complaints of abnormal air quality while the recycling materials burned.

Four firefighters sustained minor injuries from battling the blaze, Strong said. No nearby buildings were damaged.

Photo courtesy John Swords

Photo courtesy Anna Wiszowata

Photo courtesy Anna Wiszowata

Crews Tuesday night were capping off an underground pipe leak that sent oil seeping through cracks in the asphalt of a Southern California neighborhood.

The oil began leaking onto the surface of the 1200 block of North Neptune Avenue from a broken underground pipe about 7 p.m. Monday, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Crews used sand to cover the areas where oil seeped out of a finger-sized hole on the bottom of a 10-inch pipeline buried 7 feet underground, officials said. The pipeline belongs to Phillips 66, whose crews were working with hazmat teams to fix the leak.

The pipeline, which is owned by Phillips 66 of Wilmington, has been inactive for 15 years, according to Los Angeles city officials. More than 1,200 gallons of crude oil were collected from the leak.

Late Tuesday, crews worked to install a temporary clamp to patch a hole in the pipeline, which may have been damaged by Monday's 4.4-magnitude earthquake, Los Angeles County officials said.

"It is quite possible that was what caused the occurrence," said Don Ellis, a hazardous material specialist who works for the county.

Though the oil did not pose a threat to the public, residents were told about the leak and would be allowed to go to and from their homes.

The Air Quality Management District received one complaint about the stench of the spill and have officials on the scene monitoring the air quality. By late evening, they had not found high levels of hydrogen sulfide in the air.

North Neptune Avenue remained closed to non-residents. The street was expected to re-open  by Tuesday evening.

The Los Angeles Fire Department told the NBC4 I-Team that it has no recent or serious complaints on Phillips 66 that have led to injury or loss of life.

Neither the California Environmental Protection Agency nor the Department of Toxic Control  has records of complaints about the company. However, since the pipeline is a "product" line, it is possible that no complaints have been filed with the agencies, if they were not classified as "hazardous waste," the I-Team found.

President Barack Obama picked Michigan State to beat defending champions Louisville in the NCAA  men's basketball tournament title game.

The nation’s first basketball fan filled out his bracket in his annual "BARACK-etology" segment that aired on ESPN Wednesday. The reveal came two days after the White House launched its own GIF-friendly, March Madness-themed Affordable Care Act bracket.

"Tom Izzo is a great tournament coach," Obama said. "I've got Michigan State going all the way. ... He knows how to motivate folks and he knows how to coach. My pick: Michigan State. Bring it home for me. It's been a while since I've won my pool."

Besides the fourth-seeded Spartans and Cardinals, Obama also selected No. 1 overall seed Florida and top seed Arizona to reach the Final Four in Arlington, Texas.

Obama's bracket is available on Whitehouse.gov, which is using March Madness to get more young people to sign up for health insurance before the March 31st deadline.

The  “ACA Bracket” called, “The 16 Sweetest Reasons to Get Covered," originally featured 16 GIFs, and on Wednesday afernoon was down to the final four. The interactive compilation allows users to vote for the top two reasons to get health coverage and is full of links to healthcare.gov.

People can vote using their Twitter or Facebook accounts for the their favorite GIFs. The “Insurance Companies are Accountable to You” GIF shows a cat dressed in a tux. The "Nobody's Invincible" GIF features an Elmo toy falling from a store shelf. The “You Might Qualify for Free or Low-Cost Coverage” GIF portrays “The Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon “mom dancing” with First Lady Michelle Obama. And "Women Can't be Charged More Than Men" shows the first lady slam dunking a basketball using a hoop held up by LeBron James.

The ACA bracket is part of the effort by the White House to spread the word about the health care deadline. In the first week of March, Obama sat down with comedian Zach Galifianakis for a “Between Two Ferns” mock interview meant to convince young people to get coverage.

On Thursday, the president is scheduled to appear on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" to talk about the ACA.

A North Carolina school has barred a 9-year-old boy from carrying his “My Little Pony” lunchbag to school, saying it caused bullying.

Grayson Bruce of Buncombe County, N.C., said kids at Candler Elementary School picked on him because he was carrying the fuzzy, blue bag with cartoon pony Rainbow Dash's face on it, USA Today reported.

Grayson’s mom, Noreen Bruce, said the bullying got so bad that he didn’t want to get out of the car, so she decided to alert the school staff. But a counselor she spoke with wasn’t helpful and suggested Grayson hide his lunchbag inside his backpack instead, Bruce said.

Then the principal called Bruce and told her the lunchbag should stay at home, but Bruce said she didn’t think that was the solution.

"I said, 'You're missing the picture here. You're telling him that it's OK for them to make fun of him,’” Bruce said, according to USA Today.

Bruce is now homeschooling Grayson and is scheduled to meet with the school’s superintendent on Thursday to discuss the bullying.

Bruce and her two friends started a Facebook page in support of Grayson. By Wednesday, it had over 50,000 likes and a petition on Change.org asking that Grayson be allowed to bring his bag to school garnered 6,000 signatures.

A South Florida couple who had been married for more than 40 years died just 15 minutes apart.

Tom and Naomi Shirley, of Southwest Ranches, both died at Cleveland Clinic in Weston on Saturday.

Tom Shirley, 83, had undergone open heart surgery a year ago and had been admitted to the hospital Saturday after he felt weak, the Sun Sentinel reported. Naomi Shirley, 75, stayed home until the hospital called and said her husband was close to death.

• Dog Died After Woman's Surgery Without Anesthesia: Authorities

But Naomi Shirley never made it to his bedside; she suffered a heart attack on the way to the hospital and died, her family said. She didn't know her husband had died minutes earlier.

"My father passed away not knowing that mother was on her way to see him and she passed away within 10 minutes... so neither one knew the other one had passed," son Tommy Shirley, Jr. told NBC6 South Florida. "They're together now, looking over everybody."

Now, their kids are surrounded by the thought of the timing of their deaths and memories in the forms of pictures and airboats.

"She was right there beside him," daughter Melanie Davis said. "She'd catch a big of a fish as he did. They always did everything together."

• Florida Father and Son Ran Out of Air While Cave Diving

Tom Shirley lived in South Florida since age 3, and was a warden for the Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission in the Florida Everglades for 30 years, from 1955 to 1985.

"That was dad's life," Davis said. "It was all about nature and teaching us different things about different wildlife animals."

Naomi Shirley moved to Hialeah from West Virginia. She met her husband while working at a drug store, and the couple married in 1969. She worked as a nurse until retirement while the couple raised four children.

"I'm sure they'd be very satisfied. I couldn't imagine a better way of going together," son Troy Shirley said. "What more could you ask for? They truly did love one another. They truly did."